Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

Roundup: Audits being virtually ignored

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If the Auditor General releases a report and nobody reports on it, does it make a sound? I suspect we’re not far away from finding out, as once again, AG reports were released yesterday, and got the absolute bare minimum of coverage—two wire stories from The Canadian Press (combining two reports in one story, the third report as a standalone), that were picked up across several legacy media outlets, including major chains, and one CBC story that covered all three reports in the same piece. That was it. And in Question Period, the NDP raised one of those reports in Jagmeet Singh’s lead question, but in the most generic terms possible, and that was it.

To recap the reports:

  1. There hasn’t been a measurable change in the situation of First Nations housing in four audit cycles, and the process of devolving this responsibility to individual First Nations is not proceeding very quickly. (The government points out that there has been an 1100 percent increase in spending on First Nations housing, and that they are consulting on projects going forward).
  2. Indigenous policing agreements are not being lived up to by the RCMP or Public Safety, whether it’s with under-investment, under-spending of allocated funds, or the RCMP not being able to staff positions as they’re supposed to.
  3. The National Trade Corridors programme got off to a good start in the design phase, but the department isn’t tracking implementation or results very effectively, and that’s its own particular breed of problem.

It’s incredibly hard to hold a government to account if you’re not paying attention to the very reports designed to do just that, even if this isn’t one of the “sexy” special reports like on ArriveCan. Auditor General lock-up days used to be a packed affair, and now only two English-language outlets released stories. That’s a very bad sign about the state of journalism, and of the attention span within politics for these kinds of things when they don’t fit into the slogan of the day.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Both Ukraine and Russia each claim to have repelled numerous air attacks overnight on Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Russians say that they have captured the village of Orlivka in the Donetsk region, near Avdiivka. A new head of the Navy was named in Russia following so much damage and loss of their Black Sea fleet. Ukraine is hoping to have enough ammunition by April as the Czech-brokered deal gets closer to being fulfilled..

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QP: Calling out a committee chair

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Both the prime minister and his deputy were present today, as were all of the other leaders, who had all attended the lying-in-state for Brian Mulroney earlier in the morning. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he rattled off his slogans, but quickly switched to English and claimed that the PBO “confirmed” that in every province people pay more in carbon levies than they get back in rebates (which isn’t really true, because he’s looking at a different set of numbers), and demanded that the prime minister give his caucus a free vote on their Supply Day motion about cancelling the increase. Justin Trudeau responded in French that eight out of ten families get back more than they pay, and that Poilievre only wants to take money out of people’s pockets while they do nothing about climate change. Poilievre stayed in English to read that the Nova Scotia legislature voted unanimously to reject the carbon levy increase, and demanded a free vote on their motion, to which Trudeau listed what their carbon rebate is. Poilievre read a misleading number about how much the PBO says the levy costs the province, and repeated his demand, and Trudeau doubled down to praise the rebate, but didn’t dispute the PBO number. Poilievre then raised Bonnie Crombie saying she won’t implement a carbon price in the province if elected and again demanded a free vote. Trudeau trotted out the full lines about affordability challenges, and the Ontarian rebate level—because he needed his full clip. Poilievre then raised BC, misleadingly stated that the province “administered” the federal price, which is wrong, and Trudeau complained that Poilievre doesn’t care about facts, but only making “clever arguments,” to which the Conservative caucus got up to applaud before he could finish his point.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he resurrected the “fiscal imbalance” talking point from the grave, to which he accused the federal government of engineering Quebec’s deficit, which is…a novel argument. Trudeau said that the federal government is there to help provinces, while the Bloc is only trying restart a sovereignty debate. Blanchet accused the federal government of owning Quebec $7 billion, and Trudeau insisted that he works with the Quebec premier, not the Bloc.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and raised the Auditor General’s report on Indigenous housing. Trudeau thanked the Auditor General for her report, and said that they are working in partnership with First Nations to advanced their priorities. Singh repeated the question in French, and Trudeau insisted that they have invested recorded amounts in housing and services for Indigenous communities, but they have made progress.

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Roundup: Watering down a non-binding motion

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Much of the sitting day was consumed with a great deal of nonsense, some of it procedural, as the NDP moved a Supply Day motion that, among other things, called for the immediate recognition of Palestinian statehood. This was supposed to have been debated on the previous Friday that the House sat, before they decided to suspend because of the death of Brian Mulroney, and it got picked up today.

From the start of the debate, Mélanie Joly corrected pointed out that you don’t change foreign policy with an opposition motion (and one could argue that matters of foreign policy should perhaps be confidence measures), but behind the scenes, Liberals spent the day trying to negotiate amendments to the motion in order to find some shared language that more of them could support, because this was going to divide the Liberal caucus one way or the other (and one suspects that the NDP was fully trying to create some mischief and sow some discord, if only to try and claim a self-righteous position in the matter of Gaza). And at the very last minute, they did come up with an amendment that softened the NDP’s motion a lot, including the removal of the call for an immediate declaration of statehood, but it all went sideways at that point, as the amendment was moved before French translation had been provided, and there were howls of protest from both sides as MPs felt blindsided by them. Andrew Scheer got all huffy saying that the amendments were out of order because they essentially changed the fundamental nature of the motion, but the Deputy Speaker eventually decided that since the NDP, who moved the original motion, didn’t object, then the motion could be considered in order. There were then subsequent votes to adopt the motion, and when that passed, to vote on the amended motion as a whole, and it too passed.

In the aftermath, the NDP declared victory, and Jagmeet Singh crowed about what they “forced” the government to do. Erm, except it’s a non-binding motion and nobody is forced to do anything, and pretty much everything in the amended motion were things the government was doing already. Of course, the NDP watering down their motion in order to claim a hollow, moral victory is pretty much 100 percent in keeping with how they roll, particularly lately, while the Liberals dodged yet another bullet on this particular file where they cannot win no matter what they do.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian defences shot down 17 out of 22 Russian drones yesterday, but there was still damage to Kryvyi Rih from those that got through. Ukrainians continued to target Russian refineries, as drone warfare remains one of Ukraine’s best weapons against Russia. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials are alarmed that Putin’s talk about creating a “buffer zone” inside of Ukraine means a likely escalation in the conflict.

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QP: Spike the Hike vs Scrap the Crap

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Kicking off the sole sitting week of the month, the prime minister was not present for QP, though he did show up immediately after, for the speeches paying tribute to Brian Mulroney. Trudeau’s deputy was present, however, as were most of the other leaders. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and after rattling off his slogans, he railed about the increasing carbon price, and pivoted to a decree about supposedly closing the forestry sector in Quebec. Chrystia Freeland responded that Quebec has their own system for carbon pricing, which…was not the question. Poilievre noted that wasn’t what he asked, and then asked something around police needing to control crowds for food basket deliveries. Freeland noted that the Conservatives only want to cut supports for those less fortunate. Poilievre switched to English to again rattle off his slogans, and noted military families going to food banks and demanded the levy increase be curtailed. Freeland repeated that the Conservatives only want to cut programmes people rely on. Poilievre declared this to be “fear and falsehoods” and repeated some slogans about the carbon prices. Freeland retorted that Poilievre traffics in fear and falsehoods, and repeated that he wants to cut the carbon rebates. Poilievre read an out of context figure about how much the increase will cost—citing a different figure than what applies to households—and Freeland gave a somewhat confused group of carbon rebate points that didn’t really flow.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and raised the PM’s meeting with François Legault last weekend, and lamented all the things that Trudeau rejected that Legault warned. Marc Miller noted they already have an agreement with the province, but they won’t turn over all powers. Therrien took a swipe at Trudeau’s radio interview on Friday, and Miller repeated that they have constructive dialogue with the province.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP to exhort the government to vote for their Supply Day motion on Palestinian statehood. Mélanie Joly said they agree with the aims of peace, but didn’t say if they would or would not support it. Singh repeated the demand in French, and Joly noted that she was in the region last week, and spoken about a two-state solution but again didn’t give a clear answer.

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Roundup: A new tone in communications? Maybe?

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After some two years of the Conservatives rolling out three-to-five-minute disinformation videos on the regular, the Liberals have finally responded in kind, with something that has reasonable production values, snappy pace, and delivers messages to counter the Conservatives’ message with a bit of a punch at the end. One has to wonder why it took them so long, but they didn’t spare any effort in getting every single one of their MPs and proxies to blast it over their socials over the weekend.

What I will add that was fairly notable was that they didn’t rely on slogans in the video, or on entirely happy-clappy pabulum as they normally do. I’m hoping that perhaps this will finally—finally!—mark a turning point in how they approach their communications, but I’m not going to get my hopes up there either. Until proven otherwise, I suspect this may be a one-off, or Sean Fraser in particular, rather than an overall trend in how this party communicates.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck Mykolaiv on Sunday, killing one and wounding at least eight. Ukrainian drones damaged another oil refinery in Russia, and disrupted electricity supplies in order areas.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1768642103968485561

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Roundup: Eby calls out Poilievre’s baloney factory

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Because the clown show never ends, Pierre Poilievre sent a letter to BC Premier David Eby yesterday, calling on him to not increase the carbon price on April 1st in line with the federal expectation. This after he has been spending months claiming he’ll “axe the tax” in BC if he forms federal government, never mind that it predates the federal system and has frequently been higher than the federal price, and very few have balked at it. Along the way, Poilievre also claimed that BC was just “administering” the federal levy, which again, is not true.

Eby, for his, part, laughed at Poilievre, pointing out that he doesn’t live in Poilievre’s “campaign office and baloney factory,” that BC has long had the price and that if they did stop the increase, it would mean less money for people in the province (who get the rebate back mostly as tax credits and not cash transfers). But seriously, this has broad-based political support in the province, it was brought in by the then-BC Liberals (who are mostly conservatives, some of whom now sit in the federal Conservative caucus), and nobody has time for Poilievre’s performative nonsense.

More to the point, Poilievre likes to play fast and loose when it comes to jurisdiction—he keeps telling Justin Trudeau to butt out of areas of provincial jurisdiction and leave the premiers to run their own provinces (especially around things like odious anti-trans policies), and how he’s writing premiers and trying to get them to do things his way and stand against valid federal laws? How exactly does he think this is going to play if he ever forms government federally? But then again, he’s counting on the cognitive dissonance that he’s training people to accept for them to not notice his inconsistencies or his complete reversals, or when he swallows himself whole, and that remains a very big problem within the population.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck a residential area in Odesa and at least twenty people have been killed and more than seventy wounded; President Volodymy Zelenskyy has promised a “fair response” against Russia for it. Ukrainian authorities are also evacuating communities in the northern Sumy region after extended periods of shelling. Ukrainian drones damaged another Russian refinery, this time in the Kaluga region. Russians claimed that they repelled another cross-border incursion by Russian rebels in Ukraine. A UN report has found evidence that Russia systematically tortures Ukrainian POWs.

https://x.com/ukraine_world/status/1768642103968485561

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Roundup: The NDP call for more Biden policies

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I am once again forced to wonder what exactly is the point of the federal NDP if the only thing they will ever call for are just the policies of the American Democrats, no matter how inappropriate for the Canadian context, or how lazy it is to just regurgitate the American talking points without any critical conception of how Canada is a different country and is not just America divided by ten (well, probably nine now given how fast our population is rising compared to theirs).

Case in point once again—as part of their pre-budget demands, the NDP want the Canadian government to copy Joe Biden’s proposed tax increases on corporations and billionaires, because of course they do. This after years of calling for “windfall” taxes on oil companies and grocery chains, and higher wealth taxes. There are a few problems with this, however, the first being that just because Joe Biden proposes something, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen—especially if it’s a tax increase after all of the time and energy since the 1980s on tax cuts in that country. Biden doesn’t control Congress, and I have serious doubts he could get the increases passed. And while I would agree that every billionaire is a policy failure, we have so few in Canada—even fewer who file their income taxes here than who are Canadian citizens—that even if we did increase the taxes on them, it would amount to very little. The same with the demands on wealth taxes—we don’t have nearly as many as the Americans, and it wouldn’t really dent our fiscal situation federally. Windfall taxes also come with side-effects, particularly for something like the oil and gas industry, where if we impose these windfall taxes when oil prices are high, it would likely come with an expectation of greater bailouts when those prices crash.

I get that every Canadian political party likes to play fanboy/girl to American politicians, and invite them to their conventions (though the Conservatives lately have eschewed public association with most Republicans, but will instead associate themselves with disastrous UK Conservatives like Boris Johnson), and get organizing lessons from them, but come on. Some actual local policy development that reflects the Canadian economy and polity might be a good idea for a change.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles and drones stuck communications infrastructure in north-eastern Ukraine, knocking out television and radio signals in five towns. Ukrainian officials say that two of Russia’s border regions are now “active combat zones” thanks to incursions, primarily by rebel Russian forces located in Ukraine. Ukrainians living in occupied regions of the country are being coerced to vote for Putin in Russia’s elections this week.

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Roundup: Making a provincial problem a federal one—child care edition

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The CBC continues to go out of its way to provide cover for delinquent premiers who can’t live up to their promises, in an attempt to make provincial problems federal ones. Yesterday is was on the early learning and child care system—fewer than half of the promises spaces have been created, and they want to make this a federal problem. It’s not, however—the federal government did their part, and delivered the promised funding, and what is left is for the provinces to live up to the agreements that they signed, and put their own money into the system. Several provinces are not doing that, and yet demanding more federal funding, because of course they are, and because they know they will get away with it.

The federal government did not force or strong-arm provinces into this system. Why? Because every single premier who signed up knew that this was a) popular, and b) economically necessary. We have labour shortages in this country and one of the most fundamental things they can do is to increase the labour force participation of women by providing subsidised child care. Quebec learned this years ago, and also learned that this pays for itself once the tax revenue from those women in the work force rolls in. The federal government wanted to get the ball rolling and provided a certain level of funding, and attached particular strings and metrics to it so that there is uniformity around the country, and some fundamental standards, particularly around things like improving pay for workers, and standards of care, and the choice was made to subsidize not-for-profit spaces because they’re less likely to cut corners for the sake of juicing their profit margins. But there are provinces who haven’t been investing in the system like they agreed to, or those like Ontario who cut the provincial funding they were supposed to invest, and then complain that there aren’t enough spaces being created.

We need to stop giving the premiers a pass on this. This is their problem, because they signed on and now are refusing to live up to their obligations. But the media doesn’t like holding premiers to account for some unknowable reason, so you get this CBC piece that continually frames this as a federal problem where the solution must be more federal dollars. No, the solution is the provinces living up to their obligations, and they have just as many revenue tools as the federal government does—and this will make their money back. But they don’t like to raise their own revenues, and when they get federal funding, don’t like to spend it on the things they are supposed to spend it on. And like Ontario is doing here, they get federal funds, cut their own share, and then demand more federal funds or the programme will suffer. It would be great if legacy media could actually hold them to account for this rather than trying to once again make this a federal problem.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian drone and bomb attacks killed four people overnight in the Sumy and Donetsk regions. Ukrainian drones damaged more Russian oil refineries in a second day of attacks. Here is a look at the Russian rebel groups attacking from Ukraine. The artillery purchase arranged by the Czech government should start arriving in Ukraine by June.

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Roundup: Premiers concern trolling on the carbon levy

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A number of premiers have been writing letters to the prime minister, imploring him not to increase the carbon price on April 1st, citing the cost-of-living challenges that people are having. Unmentioned, of course, is the fact that the rebates are also increasing, and they’re front-end loaded, meaning the higher rebates already come into effect as the carbon levy increases, so if you pause the increase, the rebates will have already increased, which is going to cause a problem down the road for the federal books.

Nevertheless, this is largely concern trolling from the premiers, and yes, that includes Newfoundland and Labrador premier Andrew Furey, whom everyone has been making a big deal of because he’s currently the last Liberal premier standing, and he too is making the call. “Oh, just hold off on the increase while rates are still high!” they say, but rest assured, it will never be a good time to raise the price, and it will stall climate action, while the premiers mouth that they still believe in fighting climate change so long as it doesn’t cost them anything or that they don’t have to take any action, or that they’ll solve it through magical technology that hasn’t been invented yet, and never will be, especially not without adequate price signals that the carbon levy provides as it increases. Also, we’ve been down this road before with the price of oil. When it rises, people buy more fuel-efficient vehicles, and when it comes down, they go right back to buying SUVs and ridiculously oversized pick-up trucks that drive on suburban roads and never haul anything (especially because the box sizes in newer models are tiny).

If I were advising the government (and clearly, I’m not), I would insist that they hold the line on the increases, make the point about the rebates as much as possible—especially as they are delivering more to those who need it the most—because they can’t afford to show any further weakness on this file if they want to have any credibility left. They shouldn’t have caved on the home heating oil (but should have come up with a better temporary rebate for those in that particular situation), and they most especially shouldn’t have made the announcement in front of every single Atlantic MP (which was the single dumbest thing they could have done, so of course they did it). Maintaining the credibility of the programme may be its best hope for staying put, particularly when compared to all other options.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles hit two apartment buildings in Kryvyi Rih on Tuesday, killing three people. Ukraine’s security service says it broke up the largest pro-Kremlin “informational sabotage” networks it has found to date. Russia says they fought off “incursions” coming from Ukraine in the Belgorod region, while Ukraine fired drones and missiles at a major refinery in Russia, inflicting serious damage.

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Roundup: Taking Atwood’s unfounded concerns too seriously

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I am starting to think that the Globe and Mail has a secret penchant for humiliating Margaret Atwood while pretending to substantiate her concerns about legislation. They did it with Bill C-11 on online streaming, where Atwood read a bunch of utter nonsense on the internet, some of it by a fellow CanLit author who is currently a crank in the Senate, and she got concerned about bureaucrats telling people what to write. It was utterly ridiculous, but what did the Globe do? Write up her concerns as though she knew what she was talking about, including the part where she admitted she hadn’t really read the bill.

And now they’re doing it again—same journalist, in fact—about the Online Harms bill. Atwood again read some stupid things online, this time from the right-wing press in the UK, and is again worried about “Orwellian” consequences because of “vague laws” and “no oversight.” And hey, the Globe insists that because she wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, she’s an expert in Orwellian dystopias. But again, Atwood is operating on a bunch of bad information and false assumptions, and the story in the Globe doesn’t actually do the job of fact-checking any of this, it just lets her run free with this thought and spinning it out into the worst possible scenario, which if you know anything about the bill or have spoken to the experts who aren’t concern trolling (and yes, there are several), you would know that most of this is bunk.

The biggest thing that Atwood misses and the Globe story ignores entirely is that the hate speech provisions codify the Supreme Court of Canada’s standard set out in the Whatcott decision, which means that for it to qualify, it needs to rise to the level of vilification and detestation, and it sets out what that means, which includes dehumanising language, and demands for killing or exile. That’s an extremely high bar, and if you’re a government, you can’t go around punishing your enemies or censoring speech you don’t like with that particular bar codified in the gods damned bill. I really wish people would actually pay attention to that fact when they go off half-cocked on this bill, and that journalists interviewing or writing about the topic would actually mention that fact, because it’s really gods damned important. Meanwhile, maybe the Globe should lay off on talking to Atwood about her concerns until they’re certain that she has a) read the legislation, and b) understood it. Honestly.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces downed 15 out of 25 drones launched toward Odesa, while a Russian missile destroyed a grain silo in the Dnipro region. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that their frontline situation is the best it’s been in three months as they have improved their strategic position. Here is a deeper look at the Ukrainians’ retreat from Avdiivka, as ammunition was low and one of their commanders disappeared. UNESCO says that Ukraine will need more than a billion dollars to rebuild its scientific infrastructure that has been damaged or destroyed in the war.

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